


Doomed From The Start

by xTheLittleOne



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Doomed Timeline, F/F, F/M, I'm Sorry, M/M, Manipulation, Sadstuck, crocker corruption, it's not done, karkat is god tier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7205513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xTheLittleOne/pseuds/xTheLittleOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat has fallen prey to the Condesce's Crocker corruption. He has to kill all of the survivors, and no one saw when he got caught. Unfortunately for everyone else, he's smart enough to figure out how to kill even the god tiers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doomed From The Start

**Author's Note:**

> This was a muse idea I had when discussing a friend's history for Dave Strider, whom she's going to RP. I lost fire for it after sitting down and writing it in one go, and since my hand is still healing from carpel tunnel release surgery, it's hard to actually write stories. I decided I'm not going to finish it, but I did have an outline to the end of the story (I really write my outlines like that), so I decided to post it up anyway. I'm sorry in advance!

Karkat Vantas was nothing if not a loyal troll, at least to his friends.

So when he stood before Kanaya Maryam's sleeping form, there was a small, ignored voice at the back of his head that _begged_ for him not to do this. She slept beside Rose, not quite out in the open, but definitely not in the safety of a hive. Being on the run did that. He'd been undetected thus far because he took advantage of his god status, floating over the surface of the ground, shoes touching down soundlessly at either side of her hips. The weight of his sickles emerging from his sylladex made his hands dip slightly as he crouched over the prone form, the curve of his tri-colored blade fitting neatly around the jadeblood's neck. Karkat's voice was uncharacteristically soft, quiet to the point of alarm. He spoke in Alternian, the soft rumble at the back of his throat a frequency that humans, he found, couldn't hear.

“Wake up.”

The slender ear of the rainbow-drinker flicked at the low frequency of his too-close voice, jade eyes opening. Her large pupils dilated as she came to the world of the waking from whatever dream she'd been having. Turning her head to look at the male above her, Kanaya's neck pressed against the curve of his blade.

“Kark—!”

He cut her voice off with a low hiss. It wasn't their proximity that concerned her, it wasn't the fact his sickle was caging her neck to the ground. His eyes _glowed_ in the darkness, a vibrant crimson. Where the soft yellow would be was replaced by black, red markings spiderwebbing their way in a jagged manner across his face.

“Give me your lipstick.”

A quiet Alternian rumble again. It wasn't a request, it was an order. The jadebloods entire body stiffened. She'd seen those markings. The... Jane human who'd stabbed then revived Karkat had them. The alarm bells went off in her mind when she recognized what was afflicting her moirail, and she gave a low, but louder hiss in return. Beside them, Rose shifted in her sleep. Karkat didn't move, eyes flicking to the side to glance at the prone human, ensuring she didn't wake. Something about that gaze panged Kanaya's heart, and she was quick to surrender her lipstick. She didn't want him to threaten Rose too. With a smirk that showed many of his jagged teeth, he pocketed it.

The next events happened much too quickly for Kanaya's liking, though to be fair, it wouldn't have been any better slow. She thought that if she gave it to him, he would leave, for whatever reason he wanted it. He wouldn't hurt his moirail, right? But no, she felt his hand fist at the front of her shirt, that sickle twisting to cut into her shoulder. Jade blood splattered on the ground, and the female troll gave an involuntary cry of pain. It wasn't even the pain that made her call out, but the absurdity of the entire situation and her bewilderment.

That cry was what Karkat was looking for. Rose stirred awake with a start, realizing that Kanaya was no longer beside her. However, she didn't need to look for her matesprit, because the fluorescent glow in the air above her, suspended by Karkat's arms, with sickles pressed against delicate places, told her where she was.

In a normal world, a mid-blood of Kanaya's caste would easily be able to overpower a low-blooded mutant like Karkat. But this was not a normal world. She couldn't break the grip of a god, dangling helplessly in the air where he suspended her.

“Rose! He's Under The Condesce's Influence!”

An angry lavender gaze met the glowing coals that peered over Kanaya's shoulder. Her wands were out, but this made things difficult. He was using the bleeding Kanaya as a shield. She had to separate them. Those red, unblinking eyes were unnerving, but Rose's loyalty to Kanaya was a step above her friendship with Karkat.

“I see. That makes things difficult, then.”

Rose lowered her wands slightly, pondering the possibilities.

“Karkat, put her down.”

“.”

Nothing. Not like she expected anything different. Rose's feet left the ground as she rushed towards his position in the air. She'd protect Kanaya, damnit, even if it was against her own—oh...

Rose stopped her charge. Kanaya landed in a crumpled heap on the ground where she'd been unceremoniously dropped some fifteen feet below, both of Karkat's sickles buried to the hilt in her torso. He pulled her nearly against him, so that his lips could reach her ear. This time, he spoke in English.

“You told me to put her down.”

The male troll shoved the body off his sickles where it fell to the ground, not rising up. He could hear the sound of ticking, and he was able to shove it out of his mind as his feet landed solidly on the ground. A despaired Kanaya was strong, but a weaponless one was beatable. Her claws may have glanced off his sickles a few times, but the jade-colored tears marring her vision was distraction enough for him to land a fatal blow.

He dragged the drinker's body to that of her lover, carefully—and gruesomely—ensuring that she wouldn't rise again. Shaking red and green from his sickles, the cherry-blood turned. His expression was hard, eyes determined. There were four more. Perhaps if one were to look, they would have noticed the pink streaks across grey cheeks, salty droplets dripping downwards to be forgotten.

* * *  
Terezi smelled him long before he arrived. As he neared, her shark-like grin lessened, her greeting dying in her throat. He smelled wrong. She could smell blood. Rose’s blood, which smelled like strawberry syrup, Kanaya’s blood which smelled like pine. The smell of his sickles, the smell of corruption. The smell of death.

“SH1T.”

Despite being blind, Terezi was a good fighter. She didn’t waste her breath on babbling, she thought that maybe if she killed him, whatever this was would reset. But wait, the stink of death he carried… he killed someone, didn’t he? If she did the same to Karkat, he’d die a Just death. But how had he managed the other girls?

Despite her skill, it was only a matter of time before the female was overpowered. Her cane-swords were torn from her hands, teal starting to drip down her face from beneath red lenses. Karkat had a vague sense that she was shouting. Calling for someone. The voice at the back of his mind wanted so desperately to shout, ‘It’s okay! I’m here!’ but therein lies the problem; the reason she was in pain was because he was there.

A honk from the shadows just barely grabbed Karkat’s attention. The blow to the side of his head with a blunt juggling club most certainly did. The knight snarled in pain, dropping the teal-blood’s body. His horn chipped, having taken the brunt of that blow, and he whirled around to face Gamzee. He was met with dilated purple-and-red eyes, a grinning, sadistic mouth, and clubs bouncing in the lanky hands.

“I see you went and got your corruption on, brother. YOU WENT AND FUCKED UP, MOTHERFUCKER. You went and fucked up.”

Gamzee, as it turned out, proved to be an actual challenge, god or not. Red blood splattered on the ground from sheer impact force, mixing with the teal already there. Karkat should have figured Gamzee would have no trouble fighting him. The guy’s pan was fucked up since he crawled from the fucking caverns. But Karkat could do something Gamzee could not: fly. He got himself out of the highblood’s reach before another crushing blow could connect with his skull and put him out for good. The mutant had other plans.

A ringed wave of red spread outward, to the extent of Karkat’s reaches. Gamzee stilled momentarily, just watching the god tier float in the sky. It seemed the aggression towards Karkat had been sapped from him, and he finally took that moment to notice his kismesis. Black romance or not, it was still a romance. Still a bond. And that bond had been irreversibly severed.

The consorts of this planet were iguanas. Not exactly as useful as crocodiles, but they all still had teeth, and there was a fucking plethora of them. All it took was a simple command of urging, and Gamzee was buried in the lizards. They did little to hinder him, but the sheer number of them was distracting enough that Karkat was able to get close. Highbloods could survive losing an impossible amount of blood, and clowns were practically fucking immortal. But Karkat found that there wasn’t a whole lot that survived having its head taken off, and things that did generally weren’t considerable as a threat afterwards.

Red tears continued to flow. _Two more._

* * *

Dave knew something was wrong when Rose didn’t answer her communicator. His alarm grew when even Terezi didn’t answer, his receiver nothing but static. He poked the orange foam ass that was attached to his wrist, alarm growing.

“Yo, anyone alive? Don’t tell me John’s evil mom got you guys. Or was it Jade? Toss her a milkbone, maybe she’ll go away. Hello hello? C’mon guys this isn’t cool. Rose? ‘Rezi? Fuck, _Gamzee_? Kanaya, Karkat, hellooooo? Fuck.”

All he heard was the sound of something being crushed through the speaker, and the line was silent once more. He continued to ramble, growing more nervous by the second. The Mayor huddled in close beside him, growing more worried by the minute.

“Stay cool. You’re a Strider. You got this. They’re just sleeping or something, it’s late. Early. Fuck.”

* * *

The purple crab receiver crushed easily beneath Karkat’s foot. Dave always rambles when he’s nervous. It helps that Karkat knew where everyone was stationed, but the cookid’s voice carried through the forest quite well. He stopped at the edge of the woods, watching Dave talking into his communicator with the Mayor at his side, huddled around a small fire. His mind urged him forward, but there was a hesitation in his step. Life came to his eyes for just a moment before being stamped out again, the red spiderwebbing spreading on his body. He moved forward swiftly.

“Karkat? Karkat! Where is everyo--dude. Dude what’s up with you?”

“.”

Karkat meets him with silence, which only prompts more rambling. Dropping his ears slightly, he’s able to easily tune that voice out, static filling his senses instead to replace it. And yet, the tears keep falling. His gaze tears away from Dave, resting on the Mayor. 

Dave is someone Karkat’s strifed with a lot. He knows how Dave fights, and he also knows that Dave is fucking hard to fight. The bullshit flashstepping, swapping out broken swords for whole ones at the drop of a hat, and that’s without time shenanigans. Before Karkat can fight him, he needs to make the ironic coolkid lose his cool. Being his matesprit, however, gives him access to knowledge that would allow him to do just that. After all, Dave’s never seen the Crocker corruption. He doesn’t realize that Karkat’s in 0 control of himself.

“Dave, I’ve been looking for you. Thank fucking god.”

Something about his tone spooked Dave, putting him on guard. Karkat puts on a face of relief, moving towards Dave. He doesn't appear to be holding a weapon, and if anything he looks like he could use a god-damned hug. But when Dave moved to hold his matesprit, he was bypassed by an unexpected burst of speed, and the Mayor let out a strange strangled noise of surprise.

Dave freaking out while simultaneously still trying to act cool, like a fucking defense mechanism that isnt working very well because the rambling is getting worse  
Dave however manages to move faster than karkat, and the exchange of blows forces the troll to accidentally drop mayor  
Mayor whams his head on a rock or something, something mundane kills him rather than karkat directly idk  
Dave pulling a time shenanigan to rewind this just ends up in dead daves and nothing changing  
So he runs  
He runs and karkat follows and they strife and he ends up incapacitating karkat but can’t kill him  
So he escapes and tries to hide  
Unfortunately, aside from being knocked out, karkat can stay awake for fucking weeks like a lunatic  
So despite having that vague sense of safety for a few hours while he finds the rest of the party dead, he’s going to spent the next couple weeks running, hiding in rediculous places, and strifing. It’s wearing his nerves raw.  
The final strife is almost one-sided. Karkat barely has the strength to combat dave, because of condesce taking advantage of his insomnia  
Dave isnt even trying to kill him, because he can’t bring himself to, but it happens anyway  
Karkat’s exhausted full-force block missed the sword entirely, and he stumbled, anticlimactically spearing himself on the god damn sword  
Dave.exe has stopped responding


End file.
